What would you name my upcoming book? (Winner gets free stuff)

My editor and I are brainstorming title ideas, so I decided to open it up to iwillteachyoutoberich readers. One title choice is obviously “I Will Teach You To Be Rich,” but what would you pick besides that?

The winner will get 5 pre-release, signed copies of the first-edition book, and I’ll donate $101 to the charity of your choice (Indian people always add an extra $1 to gifts. I don’t know why.)

If you could pick the title of my book, what would it be? To submit your idea, leave a comment here.

Re: Indians and the extra $1:
The only explanation I have for this is in the context of wedding gifts: giving an odd number makes it harder for the couple to evenly split the gift and leave each other, so odd-numbered amounts symbolically reinforce the bond of marriage.

I can only assume that habit carried over into every other instance of giving money as a gift.

why: because your audience is young people; and I like your views on “what is rich” better than anything else. Make people think what it means for them to be rich, why they need the money in the first place.

I believe you should stick with the obvious title to build your brand. Your book will be in front of people who have sadly never heard of “iwillteachyoutoberich.com” and this is a great opportunity to strengthen that brand.

More importantly, I personally look forward to a series: iwillteachyoutoberich Volume 1 and so on.

You’ve discussed the notion of using targeted questions / declarations to get a targeted response….so use that same approach to title the book. I know that when it comes to finance a clear and specific title helps me decide whether I will buy the book…

“Learn to be Rich: The Complete Financial How-To Guide for the Young Adult”

From what you’ve mentioned about your book the main selling points are that it is very “how-to” or “nuts and bolts” oriented, and it is gear specifically for the young adult starting on their financial path…at least that’s what I’m hoping for…

I don’t know why you’d change it–you already have a brand name, why dissociate yourself from it? Besides, it lends itself to sequels: I will teach you to be richer, I will teach you to be even richer, etc.

Subtitles seem to be in vogue, though, so perhaps “I Will Teach You To Be Rich: It’s Easier Than You Think.”

This is catchy and speaks of doing something NOW. Plus you can shorten it, like David Allen did with Getting Things Done, to be the GRT method. I can see GRT seminars… GRT widgets… you can train GRT coaches… oh my the possibilities are endless.

As for the extra $1, I was always told that the $1 was for spending, and the remaining round amount was for saving. Maybe that was just my parents’ way of shaping me into the miserly 22-year-old I am today.

I’ve noticed there are three distinct elements to your brand – your personality, your blog, and your Indian background. Leverage all three. Change just one thing about your blog title and consider calling the book: Ramit Will Teach You To Be Rich.

Why not rip off Stephen Colbert and make it “I Am Rich, And So Can You!” or name it after a soap opera, such as “As The Index Fund Earns” or “The Young And The Richless,” heck, maybe even do an Updike-like “Ramit Is Rich”. Sun-Tzu would prefer “The Art Of Bore: Methodical Applications Of Welfare.” I’m a concise person usually though, so I’d just go with “$”

3. I’d work on several subtitles that explain what the book is about, pick the top four, and run a survey to see which people like best.

4. Think about who your audience is. It’s likely that the people who read your blog will NOT be buyers of your book. It’s more likely that newbies to the world of maney management will be more likely to buy the book. Hence, when you do #3 above, be sure to get this group involved somehow. (BTW, this is speculation, but the reasoning seems sound to me.)

5. When you get the book done, let me know. I’ll review it and be willing to help you promote it as I know it will be quality content.

My advice is keep it simple. I agree with everyone else though, keep the “I will teach you to be rich” part in there. It’s a catchy title. Actually, it’s what drew me to the site the first time. I saw it on a blogroll of another blog and thought, “hey, that looks interesting…” and have been reading ever since…

Take all of the suggestions above, and plug them into adsense. For each of the top 10 titles that are already getting hits (adsense tells you what is most popular, and most expensive, already), put $50 into adsense ads.

For each of the title-based ads, have them link to page on your blog, with a parameter that indicates which ad they came from. This can be done via separate but identical pages, or by using GET parameters. Finally, with all of this in place, after one month you can obtain the following data:
-Which titles were clicked on the most, as ads
-Which titles lead to the most submitted email addresses (an indication that someone would be willing to purchase)
-Which titles lead to the most email addresses per advertisement click.

Don’t pick your title based on what sounds best to you, unless you’re trying to protect some sort of artistic vision. Don’t pick what people recommend. Pick what people are willing to buy.
-Ben

I wonder if the word “rich” will give people the wrong idea. I think that when people see a book that promises to make them rich, they believe that they’ll wake up one day to find huge bags of cash have been delivered to their house.

In other words, they want to get rich so they can change their lifestyle, instead of changing their lifestyle so they can get rich.

Maybe not original, but even if people don’t buy the book, your still pushing the site – either way – they will learn to become rich with you. Thats what your blog is all about – why stray from that with your book. You gotta Synergize!!!!

Ramit, Any feedback? Could you post your top 10 favorites from these posts? Or will you be providing yourself with 5 signed copies and $101 to your favorite charity because you have already decided to use “I will teach you to be rich”?

How about “Money Matters” or “Money management matters” or “Things they don’t teach you on ways to get rich” “Secrets of the rich and famous” “Simple ways to get rich” or
“Not cheap, more like frugal!”

I’m brand new to your blog. I really enjoy the content, but I think the title doesn’t really do it justice. Your blog offers much sounder advice and food for thought than those “get rich quick” schemes out there. It’s clearly about much more than amassing money. How about something like “Get Enriched Quick” as a title for your book? (a subtitle might be “… and wealth may follow”).

-Being Awesome
-How to Systematically Kick the Crap Out of Life and Make a Little Money Too.
– Money Book
-Dollars and Sense
-Yeah, Dude, It’s That Easy.
-Dude, Where’s my Money?
-Money Monerson’s Guide to Money and All Things Money
-Use you Head (The Lump 3 Feet Above Your Ass) – You may run into copyright issues with Tom Hanks and the movie “A League of Their Own”
-So I Just Wrote a Book
-Read My Book and Live
-Don’t Read This Book (Just Kidding. You Can Read It…Seriously Read It)

But really, I second “I Will Teach You To Be Rich”. If that wins, does that mean there will be no winners? Or is the prize split among those of us who agreed with the title? :oP :o)

If not IWTYTBR, I think something related to your themes, which are a bit broader than just personal finance, since you use “rich” in a broader sense and the ultimate purpose is to accomplish goals or live a happy life. Like… Getting Rich, Accomplishing Goals… but not as square sounding. I like the ass-kicking Amberlynn mentioned earlier. Kicking Ass to Financial Success? Or if that’s not “appropriate”, then Laying the Smackdown on Personal Finance…. or… not….

– “I thought I Taught You to be Rich!”
– “Be Rich or I’ll Throw Something!”
– “I Will Teach You to be Ramit”
– “I Will Teach You to be Rich: Learn How to Enjoy Life and be Financially Responsible.”
– “I Will Taunt You to be Rich”
– “I Will Not Teach You to be Sexy”
– “You Make Me Want to Throw Something!”

I agree you should keep the site name as the main title in order to build brand equity.

Main Title: I Will Teach You To Be Rich

Subtitle: Simple Steps For Anyone to Reach Financial Freedom

You know I remember one post you made when you questioned why people want to get rich. I hope you definitely raise the question in the book as well. For some people it’s about some kind of artificial ego boost, but for many of us, it’s to alleviate the burdens of having to make decisions based on finances- which a lot of the time is just the result poor planning and preparation.

The subtitle could also be something like “Don’t Let Money Control Your Life”, “Don’t Let Money Cramp Your Style”, or “Don’t Let Money Make Your Decisions”.

“But, I don’t know ANYTHING about money!”
“If this book doesn’t help make you rich, I’ll send you a ski mask and a bank blueprint.”
“This book won’t make you rich…you will”
“I’d rather mud wrestle 60054271298523432 slightly irritated grizzly bears than print a bunch of bullshit that would waste your time”
“How to roll fat like me (I live in San Francisco bitches)”
“The Death of Poor”
“Mo’ Money, Less Problems”

“Take everything you know, set it on fire, read this book by the light of the flames, and learn how shit really works”

I will teach you to be rich sounds kind of gimmicky and would make me skeptical if I didn’t know about your site. “Why we want you to be rich “- Kiyosaki and Trump (or Douche 1 and Douche 2) is a good example. Anything with Rich in the title kind of turns me off instantly, and makes me think, “Oh boy, what kind of bullshit is this guy selling, waste of time. More like I will teach you to make me rich (props to commenter Ben). If he had all the secrets he wouldn’t put them in a book. He’d be getting a rub down on his private island trying to figure out if he wants to build the bonfire tonight out of twenties or hundreds”.

The people that do know about your site are going to know what the title of the book is even if it isn’t named after the blog (unless you don’t tell us, which I doubt, you shameless self-promoter you). It’s the people that don’t know about the site that I’m assuming you would want to “grab” with the title. And I personally will look at something funny usually, with an eye catching cover (don’t put a stock chart on it, please for the love of god). Yes, I admit that I am not that sophisticated, contrary to popular belief, and can be easily tricked by clever titles and eye candy for a cover (into glancing at the book at least). I doubt anyone will read all of my post (kudos if you made it this far). I barely remember typing this short novel.

I am American married to an India for 20 years. It’s all about the retail marketing, media and lack of work ethics. Stop Spending & Start Saving…Don’t buy everything you see, stop living for today only. I always here people say I am living for today who knows what tomorrow will bring. While I know… no savings… forclosure…and excuses.

people can come up with alot of catchey cliche’s but I think you have your title.
The “I will teach you to be rich” book pritty well says it , direct and to the point. We just can’t get enough of that these days…

The “I Will Teach You To Be Rich” title is pretty good, but as someone has previously said, a little gimicky for people not familiar with your site. People will think, “what does this guy know that all the other get rich books dont”.

I think something like “The Common Sense Guide to your Personal Finance” with a secondary title of “How I Will Teach You To Be Rich” would be more appealing to the average reader coming acroos your book in a store.

Its kinda a long title, but something like this would work best: “The Common Sense Guide to your Personal Finance: How I Will Teach You To Be Rich”

man, everything i thought of is here, will come back after some thinking.
i agree with whoever said iwillteachyoutoberich doesn’t fully encompass everything the blog has to offer, is this the case for the book as well?

how about this: instead of promoting a method to get somewhere, which every book title tries to do, you could point out that you’re offering a way to remove ONE (or a couple or more) of people’s most frequent sources of worry/unhappiness from their shit-i-dont-like pile. Even include a little whiteboard drawing about a guy removing money as a factor in unhappiness/worry

Subtitle: “I will teach you to be rich without giving up your $4 lattes”

Note: I put the word rich in quotes because unless I’m misreading some of your articles, I get the feeling that this site is to teach you how to live within your means and not spend money just because you have it to spend. Financial security will give you sense of be “rich” because having money in the bank that’s not owed to someone else is very empowering.

If you just call the book “I will teach you to be rich” I think a number of people would just pass over it, because those people probably already wasted their money on “rich dad, poor dad” and didn’t get a lot of good advice, but they did make that author RICH!

Nirvana is a Sanskrit word which means “enlightenment”, but a Google search would give you more information, because it has quite a depth of meaning. Hey its a little twist on your Indian roots and the quest for $ contentment!

1. “I Will Teach You To Be Rich: Financial Sense vs. Common Senselessness”
2. “I Will Teach You To Be Rich: Taking Back Your Finances”
3. “Financial Sense vs. Common Senselessness: Getting Rich by Keeping It Simple”

I agree with the “IWillTeachYouToBeRich: Subtitle” idea. This also leaves room for a series, as Matt suggested. I like Amberlynn’s idea: “IWillTeachYouToBeRich: How to Kick Financial Ass.” The next book could be “IWillTeachYouToBeRich: Stupid Frat Boy Ideas and Other Dumb Mistakes,” as Sean Blanda said.

I think your personality should be in the title. That’s what makes me read your blog. I don’t want a boring or generic title.

First, I should tell you that I didn’t actually read the 200 comments that have already been posted, so I apologize if someone has already mentioned this…

That being said, I was thinking about your plight today while I was out and about at the mall and I decided to walk into one of the bookstores and head to the business/investing section. A quick investigation of the section revealed that approximately 1 in 3 books have titles/subtitles that contain the word “rich.” Before my trip today, I was thinking that you’d be asinine not to utilize the brand recognition that “I Will Teach You To Be Rich” has, but now I’m not so sure. I think giving your book that title won’t allow it to stand out at all.

My suggestion: think about what your book has to offer that all of the other books out there don’t and emphasize it with your title. While most of those books are crap, there are still a fair number of books on the subject that are quite worthwhile for the new/inexperienced investor (your target market). What does your book tell me that those don’t? Are you just rehashing the same old information or are you bringing something new to the conversation? That’s your selling point; use it in your title.

If all else fails, just use a synonym for the word rich. My personal favorite: “Achieving Affluence: How Responsible InvestingToday Leads To Your Dreams of Tomorrow.”

Any time I see a book with the word rich in the title I automatically steer clear because of all the scams out there. Given that, here are my suggestions.

1. The Do It Yourself Guide to Financial Independance
2. Financial Independance: Letting Your Money Work For You
3. The Young Person’s Guide to Money and Why it Matters
4. What the Wealthy Don’t Want You to Know: Secrets to Financial Freedom

What is in the book can talk all day long about being rich, but in todays scam filled world, one needs to choose his words carefully if one is to sell a book.

Wow, I couldn’t read through the volume of previous posts, so I apologize if its alread been posted.

My vote would be something like: I Will Teach You To Be Rich: A Guide to Kicking Ass in Personal Finance

As far as the $101 dollar thing, I’m Indian…my parents always said that it was because the first $100 was the gift, and the additional $1 was a good luck omen for additional money the gift recipient was to get in the future. Just from somewhere else, not from us

Well, if you turned it into a series, I would call it
” Life and Money ”
Vol 1 Stop being Stupid !
Vol 2 Get Smart, Eliminate Waste !
Vol 3 Practice what I Preach !
Vol 4 It’s What you Save not What ou Make !

“I have too much money”
“Why money means jack to me”
“penny for the guy”
“move over Suze!”
“Underwear on sale – buy?”
“Buy this book and make $100″
“The zen of money making”
“How to mint money and not make money”
“Ram-It! The way to shove money around”
“How I made $1 without really trying”

Simple enough, if I walked by a book and seen a title like this, I would pick it up to see what it is about. The title needs you to be curious, NOT too much info. Last I heard there are only 20% of Americans that read books. That is very sad, so make the title “GRAB” you.

Many of the suggestions sound like cheap, get rich quick scam books. I would agree that “I Will Teach You To Be Rich” is probably the safest and smartest way to go. Something that I did thing of.
“How Being Boring Will Make You Rich” or something along that line. This isn’t exactly the wording I would want, but I think that you can get the point.

It’s not Sexy
Sexiness not Required
You Don’t Have to be Sexy
Un-Sexy Secrets to Personal Finance
Personal Finance Secrets Exposed: It’s Not as Sexy as you Think
Sexiness Doesn’t Sell in the World of Personal Finance

Secrets You Already Know to a Simple & Rich Lifestyle:
Do as I do and as I say

Basically you want to portray that people have tons of information they need to have the lifestyle they want already, but you just have the ability to relate to them in a matter that they will DO what you say.

Shouldn’t we know what your book is about before we try to title it? Does it lean more towards career enhancement, negotiation, recruitment or personal finance motivation? Is it funny or serious? A how to or a memoir? Is your target audience still twenty somethings or the Money Magazine audience? And is your face going to be on the cover?

Personally if it covers website topics and if your are trying to appeal to 20-somethings, I like:

Give me fifteen dollars and I WILL TEACH YOU TO BE RICH

I vote for putting your face on the cover as long as you’re wearing something outrageous.

Title:
“The Parabolic Curve: how little daily savings add up to Wealth,Opportunities and Peace of Mind.”
This of course is based on the fundamental equation:
A =Future Value= P( 1+r)^t, which is parabolic-yes?
Text:
“Each time you save and invest $1 you double your money in 10-12 years.Wouldn’t it be nice to turn your earnings into Wealth?This book tells you how: in tiny,understandable steps anyone can do-today!”
Ramit, hope you like it,
Dan Townsell

I would call it “Learn to Be Rich.” Personally I think, “I will teach you” is sort of like my students papers that begin “in this paper we will talk about 1,2,3.” (we teach them not to do this.) I think the suggestion is short and to the point. “I will teach you” is still implied. I hope you sell many, many books no matter what you decide!

It catches the attention by working on the feelings of security, an it also appeals to the “lgocal” thinking crowd. Some may see the words “get rich” and think it’s a scam.
It’s always good to think of a title that will peak the interest of your readers and work on their feelings.

“Common Sense Dollars and Cents”
Simple and concise. Could substitute S with $ and the C with the cent symbol.

“The Bulls and the Bears” or “Bulls and Bears”
Tagline: “No bull lessons on personal finance power and perpetual prosperity.”

“Personal Finance: A Plethora of Principles and Practices”
Drop “Plethora” to get a conservative title that sounds like my finance textbook. Also a departure from standard titles with “money and rich” in the titles.

“A Deliberate Walk Down Wealth Street”
Tagline: “The street Wall Street doesn’t want you to see.”
A play on the brilliant book “A Random Walk Down Wall Street.”

“Buy Boardwalk (No get out of jail free cards, sorry.)”
Monopoly fans will like this. Don’t know about any legal issues though.

“Cash advance? No, this is enhanced personal finance (biatch) !”
If 50 Cent was into compound interest he would both suggest this title, and would rename himself 50 dollars … Just kidding about the biatch part.

“The Fellowship of the Bling”
Tagline: “Let me guide you to a future of financial freedom.”
You can portray yourself as the Indian Sam Gamgee and Wall Street as the forces of Mordor. Cast Warren Buffet as Gandalf and you might have a movie deal.

It carries your brand, nods to both the web where you got your start and the web2.0 generation that you are a part of. Also, Wealth 2.0, as Web 2.0, has a different meaning than wealth in the money hungry days of the 90’s and dot-bomb era. So Wealth 2.0 has a more emotional connection, a fuller meaning than just “money”, credits and debits etc. It’s about choices and the freedoms having a balanced budget and planned savings gives one.

“”some people spend their lives trying to GET RICH,when actually IT’S A CHOICE! that’s the title. it comes from one of my favorite paintings, that i don’t have and if i win the $101 i’ll buy it for myself,the saying goes “we tend to SEEK HAPPINESS , when actually IT’S A CHOICE” think about it.
peace,love and money….. make good choices people

I have been reading your blogs for only a short time, however the best advice I have gotten from your teachings are the little things which have helped me, compiled together to make a bigger difference. I think you should name your book:
“Steps to a richer you ”
From Personal finance, savings, budgeting,
and investing to Personal Entreprenuership

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About Ramit Sethi

Ramit Sethi is the author of the New York Times bestseller, I Will Teach You To Be Rich. He writes about psychology, entrepreneurship, careers and personal finance for over 750,000 monthly readers on his website.